He's still talking to himself
by FlameOfIllumination
Summary: Giles sits and contemplates, on the women he loved, the home he lost, and the people that make it all worthwhile.


Giles sometimes wondered if he should smoke a pipe. It would complete the English picture he offered, though he was always careful never to be caught eating crumpets, or even muffins.

Perhaps his children would laugh to see him do it, or, more likely, the world being what it was, and Sunnydale being the town it was, they would check him for possession.

His Children. Sunnydale. One thing or two things wrong in that sentence?

Sunnydale, the obvious fault. Totally gone. Swallowed in the Hellmouth. Giles wasn't sure whether he missed it, or missed all the people he used to know. The job that used to satisfy. A librarian is a respectable profession for Englishman, and respectable professions were Rupert Giles' desire. Thanks to Ripper, of course.

Ripper was in no way a separate entity, and Giles knew it did no good to think of himself as fractured in two, like Angel/Angelus, but he did it anyway. Since Sunnydale, life had been busy, productive, satisfying, but sans Ripper. Sans a real life.

Giles sighed, removed his glasses and raised a hand to his brow.

_Dear Jenny_. He thought first of, as he always did. _Poor Jenny. _A flash of old anger at Angel/Angelus, the same old anger he felt every time he laid eyes on the vampire, though he knew Angel treated him so deferentially out of guilt.

Then…_Joyce_. Another woman he could have loved, in another time, another place. A time and place where Buffy wasn't the slayer and he wasn't her watcher and this gulf did not divide slayer and watcher from mother spectator.

Giles cleared his throat loudly, and then looked around, embarrassed. His library in the Council was deserted, but old habits remained. His orderly mind objected to this diversion from his original thoughts, and his heart ached as he though of dearly departed friends and lovers.

So, one or two things wrong with his first thoughts?

One. 'His Children. Was no mistake. Though traditionally the job of surrogate parent encompassed only the Slayer, Giles had found himself with a large flock of children. Buffy, his slayer. He'd raised her in many ways more than her own parents. Willow and Xander, who looked to him as the father figure lacking in their own lives. Cordelia, who tried to patronize him yet, looked to the older man to protect her anyway. Tara, whom he'd accepted once over his initial embarrassment at her role in Willow's life, and whose death had caused him grief, grief he had had little time to accept as he gathered up the pieces of a shattered Willow and glued them back together.

Dawn, a girl he'd watched over from the time she was a child.

_Not really. _

Giles frowned and made an impatient gesture as his inner skeptic spoke out.

"Well it's the bloody same thing isn't it! I remember it, she remembers it, the world remembers it, and therefore it happened!"

A head peered around the door of the library. A young slayer with curly red hair and freckled, pale skin. She heard the Head of the Council yell and was utterly baffled by his words. As he replaced his glasses she fled, resolving to come back later with her question.

At last, Giles sighed. This contemplation did no good. He leaned back carelessly in his chair, sinking into the soft leather. For a moment he was tempted to put his feet up on the polished wood of his desk, giving a rueful half smile when habit forbade it.

Giles startled at the chime of a clock behind him and glanced behind him at the timepiece. It was eight o'clock.

Soon enough, the door opened, and Buffy appeared. "You're late." Giles remarked. Buffy turned her beaming smile upon him, and then laughed. "The girls kept me, arguing over who gets to patrol tonight."

"Do remind them-"

"That thirty people on one patrol would be ridiculous? That they are inexperienced and sometimes more hindrance than help? I know Giles. They're just kids though, and slaying is fun."

Though Buffy immediately corrected herself under Giles' disapproving look, a large part of the Watcher was glad to see his slayer smiling again, and hearing her call her sacred calling 'fun' was both alarming and reassuring. The overtired, dictatorial Buffy of the past few years was relaxing.

"So who are you taking?" Giles asked, getting out a book with a row of names. As Buffy named the girls, 9 in all, he wrote the date next to their names. "We're taking the Restfield cemetery, Peace Park, and the eastern suburbs."

Next to enter was Kennedy, who nodded politely enough at Buffy and turned to Giles with a grin on her face. "My girls have been fighting." She announced happily.

"Demons?" Giles asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Each other." Kennedy laughed. "Ego's getting out of control. I thought I'd take them on a run."

Entering the room behind Kennedy, and completely ignoring Giles' repetition of 'You're late" Faith smirked at Kennedy and said in a stage whisper to Buffy, "Ken's getting her butch on. Gonna make 'em run laps of town 'till their legs fall off."

Giles waited for the slayers to stop talking, but they continued to chat amiably, seeming to have forgotten why they were there. He cleared his throat, loudly, but was drowned out by a burst of laughter from Buffy and Faith, Kennedy turning away pointedly, back stiff with mock-outrage.

Giles sighed. _They'll remember._ Giles looked at Kennedy. The oldest of the Potentials, she'd slotted into the role of trainer almost immediately, refusing to take orders from Buffy. _She's good for Willow. _Giles admitted to himself, though honestly he'd barely known her in Sunnydale. She had the drive and caustic energy of Faith, with little of her darkness. Giles glanced at Faith, who was telling a story about one of her slayers.

_Faith_. _One of my children I suppose, though if I ever said that to her I suspect she'd laugh, or find it offensive. _

"You know I'm proud of you, don't you?" he said aloud, catching her eyes.

The room fell silent and Faith grinned uneasily. Giles blinked. "All of you." he said, catching the other two in his gaze.

"I don't say it nearly enough."

And as the three girls left the room in silence, each slightly embarrassed, Giles smiled.

"Now I know they're my children. I possess the ability to humiliate and to inspire, simultaneously."

The redheaded slayer returned, looked around the door, sighed inaudibly and left.

"He's never going to stop talking to himself." She complained to a friend, and the two stalked away.

**I have made a decision. I have more free time on my hands than at previously, and so I have resolved that whenever I get signed reviews to any of my stories, I will reciprocate with one of theirs., even if they write in a fandom I've never read before or even heard of. (cough Anime cough)**


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